Skip to main content

The process of home improvement continues...what comes next?

Over the past month we have moved from one part of our lives and into another part.  Nearly everything is where it should be, the work on the house is scheduled and Sue is starting to concentrate on getting her business back up and running.  Our lives are getting back to "Normal" or what ever constitutes that right now.   We are falling into a routine.

I like my job with NYL and the fact that they were willing to let me keep it, even though I moved over 1000 miles away from my home office.   Our new house was slowly coming together and growing on me, although I still had some reservations. For example, while the local volunteer fire department was only about five miles away, the nearest hospital was further than that and had a reputation for barely being able to deliver puppies much less any serious issues that either of us my have.   Going to the store was going to be less and less a weekly or biweekly trip like it was before and more of a monthly one time option simply because of the miles and time involved.

Susan and I had gone out to dinner as a couple finally and had to drive an hour for Mexican food that was "satisfactory" at best.   The waiter seemed happy that he was actually able to talk his native language to me even though my very limited Spanish was God awful at best.   However they did have Horchata, but it was something they didn't have on the menu since no one ever asked for it.  He was happy to make us a glass or two.

Since we just moved, and having two large repair bills over our head, we were not ready to start any major projects.  The question was however...what comes next?

Painting most likely, as our bedroom has light pink walls and a deeper shade of pink carpet.  Another room has, to quote the lovely Sue, "Baby shit" brown walls and a horrid blue carpet.   We believe that the floors are actually covered in the same honey brown pine that most of the floors of the house maintain.    All photo's were taken directly from Zillow.com


Here is the living room with a good shot of the floors that we love with the exposed brick of the fireplace.  That chair and "wall" behind it will have to go.

 We knew there would be projects and Sue and I had talked about wanting to learn and take on more of the day to day "grunt" work.  I still hoped to take some time and be able to make or build some elevated garden beds for use in the spring and we joked about getting some chickens.   Our next door neighbor had his horses and a goat named Nanny that often wandered over to eat our grass and the idea of chickens sort of amused us both.

So painting we could do.  Even a little bit of plastering.  However some things, such as the roof and fireplace were simply beyond our ability...we wondered about the bathroom. It is...well.  Yea, it's bad.


Yes, that is blue carpet on the floor.  We figured that the old man that lived here us, and who built the place, got to a point in his life where he didn't want to accidentally slip and fall on the floor.   So, the blue rug went down.    If the wood isn't there, then we are going to tile it, put a double vanity in and redo the shower completely.   This is not a job that we can do ourselves so, that's on the wait list.

We actually have mixed emotions about the kitchen.  The design of it isn't bad although moving the fridge would make the work area more efficient.   The other appliances are just really dated.  The cabinets however are beautiful.  They were hand made, probably done by the Amish, and are deep and wide.  While the amount of storage in them is surprising, their is still not enough room for all of Susan's various cooking supplies and "toys."


 Why they covered a beautiful golden pine floor with cheap linoleum I'll never understand, unless they were trying to separate the kitchen area from the attached dining room.  Again this may be something we wish to tile eventually, and we would like to remove that island and replace it with something more functional.  

All this of course, takes time and money.  Luckily I have one of the two.




Comments

What all the cool kids are reading.

Letting a small parcel of land go wild.

       In many ways, I want to make this home of ours into a gem.  We have an idea of what we want to paint, what we want to update and what we want to replace completely.     If the weather cooperates, this morning at the time of writing there is a heavy thunderstorm moving through, I hope to add some more rocks to my "Dry Creek" project and start/finish the often delayed fire pit build. Taken from a window during a storm     Well we did not plant a garden this year for a variety of reasons; we do have the room in front of the house for a wonderful and varied garden.   It's also the part of our property that gets the most sun and has a very fine slope away from the home so water can flow out towards our road.     We may never be self sufficient but we can be a little smarter and environmental conscious on what we do, and how we do things.   This is why I am thinking about letting so...

Taking care of my mental health. A brief hiatus is in order

  Without going into to much detail, I decided to leave my job at the beginning of September.  There are many reasons for this but for some time I've been feeling that my current position has not been the best fit for either the company or myself.    I did not feel like the company was listening to my concerns nor do I feel like they really cared for their employee's; despite a killer benefit package that I'll never see again.  Their technology was at least 20 years behind everyone else and  I believe that they really didn't have the best interests of their customers at heart. It's not all their fault.  I'm to blame too as it seems that I've not been living up to their goals and needs for the last year, and this is one of the reasons it's taken me so long to write this blog post. In addition to trying to find a new job before the end of the month, I've been dealing with anxiety and a mild case of depressio n.  Writing a blog that deals with ...

In praise of the simple pumpkin. It has a lot of potential other than pies.

As I write this the temperature is climbing.  We have a window or two open, knowing that soon enough we will be shutting up the house for the next three months or so we can protect ourselves and our cats against the onslaught of winter.   Our wood stove burned overnight to take the chill out of the air and I found myself buying new boots and gloves and driving home with the windows down. This is the nature of autumn in Western Pennsylvania and as I sip on my pumpkin flavored coffee, I cannot help but praise the fruit of the season, and yes it is a fruit, the simple pumpkin. A few things are still growing in our garden, the last of the herbs and tomatoes...a stray pepper or two that needs to be picked.  Yet I find myself interested in growing pumpkins next year after realizing their potential and that they are high in nutritional value.   It's easy to forget in our modern world just how easy we have it as compared to our great grandparents and their grandparents....